Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
‘Nothing short of scandalous’
A violent knife thug has been posting pictures on Facebook of his life in prison after smuggling a phone into his cell.
Cocky Sonny Barker – jailed for 12 years last August for threatening a terrified mum and daughter with a knife – has been uploading photos to his online profile and bragging of his easy life inside.
The pumped-up 20-year-old, of Penshurst Close, Canterbury, has been taking the snaps on a Blackberry in his cell at HMP Rochester, where he is serving a sentence for aggravated burglary and possessing a knife.
Canterbury Crown Court heard he held the blade to a woman’s face and then to the stomach of her 16-year-old daughter after bursting into their Canterbury home last February, wearing a balaclava.
But the muscle-bound menace – who has 24 convictions dating back to 2008 – appears to be taking little time to repent, regularly posting pictures and messages on the social networking site.
In the most recent photo, uploaded on Sunday and showing him topless in his cell and tensing his bicep, he boasts: “Wait a second, where did these muscles come from?”
It is the latest in a string of pictures and messages posted on his profile since the end of June.
In the first, on June 29, he wrote: “What’s happening! Coming from live from prison. Whos missing me.”
In another, on July 14, he bragged: “I’ll be home soon. Real soon December 2015.”
He even had the audacity to whinge about the lack of people contacting him on the phone, writing on August 4: “Why am I not getting the adds I deserve on BBM?!”
Two days later, responding to a pal who says he “has it on smash” – prison slang for living an easy life inside – Barker boasts: “When haven’t I had it on smash? Admit it, been bossing since Elmley [prison].”
In many of the snaps, Barker is pictured with Korrel Kennedy, who was once dubbed “Britain’s worst teen” and is believed to be his cell mate.
Kennedy, 20, was given an Asbo six years ago, banning him from large areas of Brighton.
He was later signed by a top modelling agency – even walking the catwalk at a Paris fashion show – but was jailed for twoand-a-half years in 2011, after he was caught on camera wielding a knife as he chased a man.
In the latest picture of the pair, posted last Monday, they pose in a cell in just their underwear, showing off the muscular physiques they have honed in one of the prison’s three gyms.
Behind them is a TV and a Playstation 2, which can be found in most cells in prison, where football coaching courses are available to inmates.